CALM YOURSELVES
Roscommon boss calls for more realistic expectations from the fans
THE NOTION of a revolution in the west was peddled in March when the Roscommon under-21s riddled Mayo in their own backyard. It was the fourth time in the last five years that Roscommon had put paid to Mayo’s ambitions in the grade, and there wasn’t even the consolation for the latter that they were caught with a poor harvest.
Those Mayo teams included graduates from the 2008 and 2009 minor teams that had reached back-to-back All-Ireland finals and still they were just swept away.
John Evans did not have to leave his front door in Killorglin to catch the optimism in the wind, and he doesn’t mind admitting that it chilled him a little too.
‘I am worn to the teeth from listening about that. It irks me a small bit because that registers with Roscommon supporters, and they hang onto that, thinking that winning at underage will suffice whereas you are not really beating Mayo until you are beating them at senior level, and you are not beating Galway until you are beating them at senior level.
‘You are codding yourself when you are winning minors and under-21s and you are automatically linking that to senior success,’ says the Roscommon boss.
He speaks with the value of experience. He spent five years in Tipperary; a time when the seeds were already being harvested at underage level, which culminated in an All-Ireland minor title in 2011.
In that time frame, they won Munster titles at every grade apart from senior – Evans himself on the line in 2010 when they defeated his native Kerry to win a first provincial under-21 title – but it hasn’t yet transferred to the top level. Last weekend, in beating Limerick, Tipperary won their first senior Championship game in 11 years.
It offers a context for Evans’ caution. When he named his team last month to take on Leitrim in the opening round of the Championship and not one of the under-21 that subsequently went onto reach the All-Ireland final made the cut, some interpreted it as a sign of the depth of talent at his disposal. There may have been an element of that, but it was also best practice at play.
‘I just think it is the wrong hook to be hanging your coat on,’ he explains.
‘The most important element in what it takes to be a senior inter-county player is not what you won, but what you have inside you.
‘The guy who can handle the heat of the kitchen, who has the commitment and dedication to push on, who has the strength and conditioning to deliver on it, and who is willing to accept the almost insular life that it takes to make it.
‘It is getting that maturity between 19 or 20 years-ofage to 22 or 23. Some guys you can see straight off at 19 that they are going to be good seniors – they just have it. With others it takes time,’ adds Evans.
Roscommon have to go back to the 2001 Connacht final for the last time that they beat Mayo in the Championship. They have lost the last seven meetings, which is the kind of run that can infect heads with doubt.
On the team that he starts today, no fewer than 11, Darren O’Malley, Niall Carty, Neil Collins, Niall Daly, Ciaran Cafferkey, Cathal Shine, Kevin Higgins, Donie Shine, David O’Gara, Ronan Stack and Ciaran Murtagh, have all played on Roscommon teams that have beaten Mayo in that under-21 winning sequence since 2010.
That should cleanse heads of any notion of inferiority, but Evans is not buying it. He again references his Tipperary experience, with the Premier County unable to break Cork and Kerry’s stranglehold
on the Munster Senior Championship.
It is overstated. I have had guys who have stood up in dressing rooms and said that they have no fear of a certain county team because they have beaten them at under-16, minor and under-21 and yet that is the very thing that they do have. Saying it is not enough, it depends on the kind of player coming through, you have got to show it and that is a total different thing.’
Today, he knows his Roscommon team has to show that they have also moved on from last year, when Mayo wiped them by 12 points. That may have said more about Mayo than Evans’ team who pushed Tyrone hard in the qualifiers subsequently and capped promotion this spring after beating Cavan in the Division 3 final.
‘I think Mayo started their run last year way too early and they were in super fit shape very early on. They were in full blossom were showing all their wares, they were exuding confidence, supreme in every department of the field and they really impressed in the way they went about it.
‘They hit a patch and crushed teams and liked crushing teams. No matter what people say about them falling at the final hurdle so many times, it does not take away from this team.
‘We are in a better place this time to give a better account of ourselves. I have said this before, it behoves ourselves, Sligo and Galway, the remaining teams in Connacht, to put up a better show.
‘The effect of time is at some stage Mayo are going to come back, ourselves, Galway and Sligo should move forward. Now it’s about shortening that time and closing that gap as soon as possible.’